Ammunition clips (magazines) for firearms are widely used. Such clips often hold large numbers of cartridges and are often associated with automatic and semi-automatic weapons. The ease and speed with which an empty clip can be replaced with a full clip makes the use of ammunition clips very popular with the police, the armed forces and gun hobbyists, in general.
Gun clips are typically constructed with an elongated housing with one end of the housing engaging the gun and the other, lower end extending downward. The lower end is frequently used as a handle.
Cartridges are typically loaded from the gun end and are usually inserted cross-wise to the elongation of the housing. A spring underneath the cartridges is compressed by insertion of each cartridge and functions to urge the loaded cartridges towards the gun breech during firing.
While existing gun clips work well, their spring mechanisms are unnecessarily complex. In order to maximize the number of cartridges that a clip holds, the spring is required to have a very low profile and to occupy a relatively small volume at the bottom of the clip when the clip is full loaded. Because of the importance of gun clips a need exists for a more space efficient spring mechanism.